Why do bridges cost so much in North America (Tappan Zee, Champlain)

In My Humble Opinion
1

(The word billion is used in this thread for brevity. It’s a North American billion, worth 1000 million.)

Inspired by this recent thread, which I didn’t want to hijack. It discussed the Tappan Zee bridge replacement project, which has a budget of about 3.9 billion U.S. dollars.

A major point of concern in my area is the replacement of the crumbling Champlain bridge in Montréal. The minister has just promised a replacement by 2018. The plans have not been finalised and certainly not been made public yet, but pundits are estimating the cost at about 3 billion Canadian dollars (2.8 billion U.S. dollars), with some going as high as 5 billion. The original bridge cost 50 million Canadian dollars in the early 1960s, which I’m told would translate to 500-600 million in today’s dollars.

To my untrained eye, the two projects seem similar (length, amount of traffic, etc.).

There’s also the Bay Bridge replacement in California, admittedly a larger project, which cost about 6.4 billion U.S. dollars.

Yet I read about similar or larger bridges built elsewhere in the world for much less money.

Rio-Antirrio bridge (2004): 700 million euros (948 million U.S. dollars)
Sutong bridge (2008): 1.7 billion U.S. dollars, but it’s about twice the length
Øresund bridge and tunnel (2000): 30 billion DKK (5.45 billion U.S. dollars), but it’s about 3-4 times the scale
Viaduc de Millau (2004): 400 million euros (542 million U.S. dollars) (yeah, I know, it’s on dry land, but just look at it)
What’s so special about North America to drive up the costs? Or is my selection biased (counterexamples please)?

2

I think you may not be making an apples-to-apples comparison. The North American bridge projects you are looking at are all replacements, while the others seem to be new bridges. To replace a bridge, you typically have to build half the bridge immediately adjacent to the old bridge, demolish half the old bridge, build the other half of the new bridge, and demolish the rest of the old bridge. That adds a lot of time and complication to the process, and limits a lot of engineering choices. You can’t re-site the bridge to an optimal location, you have to worry about safety during construction and demolition since there will always be traffic immediately adjacent, etc.

For one example, I understand that the Tappan Zee bridge is at the worst possible place to build a bridge over the Hudson River. It was sited at the widest, siltiest point on the river due to some century-old political issues. That adds a lot to the expense of the project.

3

I’m certainly not an expert but for the Champlain Bridge, you need to account for:

  1. Labour costs, which are going to be higher than if you’re building in China.
  2. Location: the water is actually rather deep in that part of the river which leads to difficulties.
  3. They’re thinking of a two-story structure with a light rail track. That costs something.
  4. This is the busiest bridge in Canada. They will need to also build a very significant access infrastructure in a very busy area. The Champlain Bridge has almost 10 times the traffic of the Øresund Bridge.
4

If the Wikipedia page is accurate, then the new bridge is 8-10 lanes, whereas the old one was 6 lanes. The new one will also include a light-rail train - which presumably means a set of tracks in each direction. Add in modern environmental and safety considerations, and (hopefully) a design that costs more upfront but requires less intensive maintenance than the old bridge. These factors might help explain some of the elevated cost.

5

Environmental concerns too since, in North America, you generally can’t just kick the old bridge into the river and call it a day. A lot of careful demolition, removal and restoration.

6

The current Tappan Zee was designed for 100,000 vehicles per day, and now carries around 138,000. I’m not sure what the design load for the replacement is, but it’ll be more than 138,000 in eight traffic lanes, plus the two light rail lines. Similarly, the existing Champlain Bridge carries 159,000 vehicles/day in six traffic lanes, and the repalcement bridge is expected to be have eight or ten traffic lanes. Compare those to the bridges referenced in the OP:

Four traffic lanes, ~11,000 vehicles per day

Looks like 6 lanes on google maps, and traffic is projected to 90,000 vehicles/day by 2025.

Four traffic lanes, 17,000 vehicles per day. Like the Tappan Zee replacement, it also has two railway tracks.

Four traffic lanes, 10,000-25,000 vehicles per day

Compared to Europe, there’s just a whole lot more over-the-road traffic in North America - the US and Canadian bridges handle an order of magnitude more traffic than their European counterparts do. The NA bridges are twice as wide, and the structural components have to be that much beefier to handle the heavier decking, the heavier loads, and the greater daily wear-and-tear.

As jovan posted, the labor costs in NA are going to be much greater than those for the Sutong Bridge. There are also a host of environmental regulations that go into working in NA rivers that China doesn’t have to deal with, and I would be surprised (really just guessing now) if the material and design standards for Chinese infrastructure are comparable to those in North America.

7

Americans are fat so the bridges have to be stronger.

(I’m kidding)

8

The Greek bridge was constructed about ten to twelve years ago, so the numbers need to be increased somewhat. The Danish bridge is, as you said, longer but the traffic is only about 17,000 vehicles daily. Still the cost is roughly comparable. The French viaduct is, as you said, on dry land. Presumably that means lower construction costs. And then there’s the Chinese bridge. As mentioned, lower labor costs are a part of it. But also Chinese standards are much lower than in the US. Here’s a quote from a Businessweek article on construction in China, “At a forum on green building in 2010, Deputy Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing said, ‘Every year, new buildings in China total up to 2 billion square meters and use up to 40 percent of the world’s cement and steel, but our buildings can only stand 25 to 30 years on average.’ U.S. commercial buildings are expected to stand for 70 to 75 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.”

9

I started a thread in GD about the same phenomenon. It’s not just bridges. Many things that the US government or states or cities do cost more in this country than in foreign countries, more than private enterprise spends on similar things, and more than they cost in previous generations. I hadn’t previously looked into the number from Canada, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true there.

The reasons are many and varied, but the basic idea is that our government has become a tool for all kinds of special interest groups that have, for various reasons, made it more expensive for the government to do things. One example is the Prevailing Wage Laws. Anyone working on a government project must be paid a “prevailing wage” that’s much higher than the actual prevailing wage. Then there are the Environmental Impact Statements. These can take years to complete, and endless amounts of research and fine-tuning in order to meet every last environmental regulation. Add it all up and the costs become tremendous.

10

This is a good point. I am involved in purchasing for the federal goverment, and at just about every purchase level - from a few bucks up to many millions - there are a whole bunch of preferences and priorities that are mandated, such as for:

-small businesses
-minority-owned businesses
-women-owned businesses
-disabled-owned businesses
-environmental considerations
-energy efficiency considerations

When we buy something, the product/service’s performance and price are only part of what gets considered; the rock-bottom cheapest option is likely to lose out because of all of these other considerations.

And on a big project like a bridge, the effort to analyze all of these considerations can add quite a bit upfront to the entire cost.

Please note that I’m not arguing here against (or for) these considerations.

11

NIMBYS. Don’t forget the NIMBYS.

12

it was built there because they:

A) Wanted it to be as close to NYC as possible while also-

B) Still remaining outside the jurisdiction of the NYC Transit Authority

This way NY State, not the city, got all the toll revenue. Still seems dumb that they couldn’t have built it just a little farther north to avoid the Hudson’s widest point!!

13

It was the Port Authority ( of New York and New Jersey) not the Transit Authority. If the bridge was built further south, the revenue would have been shared with New Jersey.